Atmospheres

Inspired by the aesthetic philosophy of Mario Perniola, this work looks not to the work of art, but to its context and conditions. Here, the shadows cast by a collection of vitrines in which various artworks are contained and displayed are brought into relief. Following Perniola, shadows are not merely the contextual and conditional remainders of works of art, not the supplemental and ostensibly meaningless circumstances produced without intention by the vitrines and the lighting making them visible; rather, they are situations generating atmospheres, experiences, feelings, and moods, which they do over and above, around and alongside, and below the specular intent of the works themselves. Plinth is a topological inquiry into the spatial manifold of art’s fragile and lurking environments and peripheries. It posits the viewer as a wayward spectator.